M-1 is scheduled to hold “M-1 Challenge 9” at the Ice Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia on Nov. 21, according to the promotion’s official website, M1Mixfight.com. The event will feature a double-header with Team Korea taking on the Russian Red Devil team and also the Russian Legion team squaring off with Team Holland.

The event is also expected to feature two superfights with Aleksander Emelianenko, the younger brother of WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko, set to take on Korean prospect Sang Soo Lee.

Emelianenko is 13-3 in his MMA career with notable wins over Assuerio Silva, Pawel Nastula, Sergei Kharitonov, and James Thompson. He last competed in April during an M-1 Challenge event in St. Petersburg.

Lee is 9-4 and is coming off an impressive victory at “M-1 Challenge 7,” where he submitted Roman Zentsov with a triangle choke at 4:33 of round 1. The victory avenged a previous loss to Zentsov stemming from their first meeting during an M-1 and MFC co-promotion in 2007.

M-1 will also be making its debut on U.S. soil on Oct. 29 in Kansas City, Mo. Former IFL and UFC veteran Mike Whitehead is scheduled to headline the event in a Superfight. Whitehead was a three-time All-American wrestler while competing for the University of Missouri and appeared on the second season of Spike TV’s hit reality show, The Ultimate Fighter.

Whitehead is 22-6 in a professional MMA career that began in 2001 and holds notable victories over Ruben Villareal, Mark Kerr, Krzysztof Soszynski, and Vernon White. The Xtreme Couture product last competed during Affliction’s inaugural show on July 19, where he suffered a unanimous decision defeat to Renato “Babalu” Sobral.

I love watching M-1. They have a ton of awesome fighters. They're also probably the reason why we don't see many of the top Russian fighters fighting in the US. So I was psyched when I learned they were going to have the show on HDNET. The only issue I have with the promotion is that they typically do this Nation vs Nation bit and always put top Russian fighters against mediocre fighters from another nation.

Woah complete misread about the matchup. Whoops!

Last edited 10/14/08 10:53PM server time by WolfensteinEdit note/reason: n/a2 total post edits

I don't really get the matchup because Mike Whitehead is a light heavyweight and Aleksander is a huge HW (6'6 255lbs vs 6'1 205lbs). Aleks is just too big and his standup is awesome. He should knock Mike out rather easily in the first.